1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a laminating apparatus that covers and adheres front and back surfaces of a laminate target, such as paper, using sheets made of synthetic resin, and a structure of a sheet cassette to be mounted in the laminating apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
There has been known a laminating apparatus for laminating targets, such as a card, by sheets of synthetic resin film.
National Stage Laid-Open Patent Publication (KOUHYOU) No. 10-507005 based on a PCT application discloses an example of the laminating apparatus described above. In the laminating apparatus, a pair of sheet rolls which are wound around each sheet thereof for laminating front and back surfaces of paper is rotatably supported at respective upper and a lower positions in a sheet cassette. The sheet cassette can be detachably mounted to a sheet supply unit of the laminating apparatus.
In the laminating apparatus, a pair of upper and lower pinch rollers are disposed at the paper feed-out side of the sheet cassette. Both pinch rollers are structured so as to rotate in synchronization with a turn of an external handle.
Paper put on a paper supply tray is fed to the gap between the upper and lower sheet rollers, and the paper is sandwiched therebetween and laminated while drawing the upper and lower sheets. A laminate thus formed is cut in an X direction (a direction perpendicular to a feed direction of the paper) using a lateral cutter blade. Accordingly, the paper laminated by sheets of a PET film (laminate) can be obtained.
However, in the conventional laminating apparatus, the paper, which is a laminate target, is manually inserted into a sheet laminating unit for laminating an upper and lower sheet in the sheet cassette after putting the paper on the paper feed tray. Therefore, there is a problem that it is burdensome to manually perform the inserting operation.
In response, applicant proposed a motor-driven laminating apparatus, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application No. 10-369566. That is, a pair of paper feed rollers are disposed between a base end of the paper supply tray disposed at an inlet side in the laminating apparatus and an inlet side in the sheet cassette detachably mounted in the laminating apparatus (laminate target leading side). The paper feed rollers, the pinch rollers, and a pair of paper feed-out rollers are synchronized with each other and driven via an electric motor (not shown) and a power transmission mechanism, thereby automatically supplying paper P on the paper supply tray to the sheet laminating unit.
A minimum length (dimension along a feed direction of the laminate target) of paper (laminate target) that can be laminated is determined by a distance between the rollers. That is, when paper which is shorter in length than the distance between the rollers is put on the paper supply tray, a tip of the paper P does not reach the pinch rollers even though an end of the fed paper P is released from the paper feed rollers. Consequently, it is impossible to pinch the paper P by a pair of sheets.
It has been desired that one laminating apparatus could laminate different sized paper, such as A3, A4, and A6-size paper. Each width of the upper and lower sheets, which are to be accommodated in the sheet cassette, need to be changed to conform to each size. When the number of laminations of paper is set to the same number without concerning the size of the sheets, the roll length when the sheet for laminating a large size paper is rolled is long. By extension, the diameter of the roll is also large. Therefore, as to a dimension along the feed direction of the laminate target of the sheet cassette (hereinafter referred to as a depth), it is set large for the housing for large size paper and it is set small for the housing for small size paper.
In such a case, the sheet cassette has to be freely detachably disposed between the paper feed rollers and the pinch rollers. Therefore, the distance from the paper feed rollers to the pinch rollers (the distance between rollers) needs to be set longer in the structure than the paper feed rollers and the pinch rollers as fixedly disposed in the prior art which resulted in the problem that small size paper could not be laminated.
On the other hand, when the distance between rollers is set to be shorter, so that small size paper can be laminated, the diameters of the sheet rolls to be accommodated in the sheet cassette need to be small. In this case, problems arose that large size paper P could be laminated extremely few times, and required frequent replacement of the sheet cassette or the sheet rolls in the sheet cassette.
Therefore, the invention is made to solve the above-described problems. It is an object of the invention to provide a laminating apparatus which is capable of laminating different sized paper (laminate targets) and a sheet cassette which is capable of accommodating sheets having a large winding diameter and which is used in the laminating apparatus.
According to a first aspect of the invention, a laminating apparatus may include a laminate target supply unit that supplies a laminate target, a sheet supply unit that supplies a pair of sheets by which the laminate target is laminated, and a laminate processor that laminates the laminate target supplied from the laminate target supply unit with the pair of sheets supplied from the sheet supply unit while the laminate target is sandwiched between the pair of sheets and fed out as a laminated product. A cassette accommodating portion for detachably accommodating a sheet cassette which accommodates the pair of sheets wound in a roll shape thereof is formed in the sheet supply unit, and a paper feed roller means disposed between the laminate target supply unit and the cassette accommodating portion is provided so that the paper feed roller means can move closer to and apart from a laminate target leading side of the sheet cassette.
Therefore, when the sheet cassette for sheets having a small winding diameter is set in the same cassette accommodating portion as a replacement of the sheet cassette for sheets having a large winding diameter, the distance between the paper feed roller means and the pinch roller means can be shortened, so that a small laminate target can be also surely laminated and produced.
According to a second aspect of the invention, in the laminating apparatus of the first aspect of the invention, the laminating apparatus further may include an interlocking unit that moves the paper feed roller means closer to the laminate target leading side of the sheet cassette in synchronization with the setting operation of the sheet cassette into the cassette accommodating portion.
In the above laminating apparatus, in addition to the effect obtained by the first aspect of the invention, an effect that the laminating operation can be extremely speedily performed with ease is also produced.
According to a third aspect of the invention, in the laminating apparatus of the first or second aspect of the invention, a dimension of a feed direction of the laminate target in the cassette accommodating portion is formed to correspond to the sheet cassette in which sheets having a large winding diameter are accommodated, and the cassette accommodating portion is structured so that an attachment can be detachably mounted thereof and a sheet cassette in which sheets having a small winding diameter are accommodated is mounted apart from the laminate target supply unit on the attachment.
In the above laminating apparatus, the sheet cassette for the sheets having a small winding diameter can be easily mounted in the cassette accommodating portion, where the sheet cassette for the sheets having a large winding diameter can be mounted thereof, using the attachment. Therefore, in addition to the effects obtained by the first or second aspect of the invention, an effect that various sizes of the laminate targets can be easily laminated using one laminating apparatus is produced.
According to a fourth aspect of the invention, the sheet cassette may have sheets having a large winding diameter and can be mounted in the cassette accommodating portion of the laminating apparatus of the first aspect of the invention, wherein a depressed portion is formed toward the laminate target feed-out side on the laminate target leading side. With this structure, an effect is achieved such that the sheet cassette for the sheets having a large winding diameter can be mounted and used in the laminating apparatus so that the distance between the paper roller means and the pinch roller means can be adjusted. Further, the gap between the sheet rolls having a large winding diameter provided next to each other results in a space in which the depressed portion is provided, whereby the paper feed roller means can enter to accommodate the variable paper size adjustments.